2 In Search Of Walid Masoud by the Palestinian author Jabra Ibrahim Jabra. This is available in English, translated by by Adnan Haydar & Roger Allen. Syracuse University Press, 2000. Also, Ghassan Nasr’s translation of Ibrahim Jabra’s The Journals of Sarab Affan, published by Syracuse University Press, was a runner-up for the Banipal translation prize in 2008.

3Honor, by the great Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim. As far as I can turn up, this has never been translated into English. Ibrahim’s Zaat, Committee, Stealth, and Beirut, Beirut are all available. The Smell of It was translated, too, but it’s long since out of print.

4 War In The Land Of Egypt by Yusuf al-Qa’id was published by Interlink in 1997, translated by Olive and Lorne Kenny and Christopher Tingley.

5 Men In The Sun, by the Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani, was translated by Hilary Kilpatrick and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers in 1998.

8 Rama and the Dragon, by the Egyptian Edward al Kharrat, was translated by Ferial Ghazoul and John Verlenden and published by AUC Press in 2002.

9Thus Spoke Abu Huraira, by the Tunisian author Mahmoud Messadi, has been translated into French, but not English. I can find nothing by Messadi (or, more properly, Al Messadi) in English.

10 Beirut Nightmares, by Syrian author Ghada Samman, was translated by Nancy N. Roberts and published by Quartet Books in 1998.

11. The Animists, by Libyan author Ibrahim al-Koni, translated by Elliot Colla. Available June 2012. A number of al-Koni’s books are now available in translation: The Bleeding of the Stone, Gold Dust (also translated by Colla), The Seven Veils of Seth, and others. All except The Bleeding of the Stone (Interlink) are available through AUC Press.

12.Tattoo, by Iraqi author Abdul Rahman Majeed al-Rubaie

An excerpt of Tattoo was translated by Shakir Mustafa and published in Banipal 17, and again in Contemporary Iraqi fiction: an anthology, but a full version has not been published. Mustafa notes in his 2008 anthology that “also notes that The Tattoo “which went into a sixth printing in Morocco in 2002, has never been published in Iraq.”

I did not find The Sail and the Storm in English, although Mina’s Sun on a Cloudy Daywas translated by Bassam K. Frangieh. And Fragments of Memory: A Story of a Syrian Family was translated by Olive E. Kenny and Lorne Kenny and published by Interlink in 2004. The Sail and the Storm was translated into Italian – La vela e la tempesta, Jouvence 1993.

15.Zayni Barakat, by the Egyptian author Gamal al-Ghitani, is available in numerous editions, including Penguin (non-classics), 1990. Translated by Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa.

Khalaf: I think that what made Leila Baalbaki, in particular, interesting is because for the first time, it wasn’t women trying to imitate men. They sort of found their own voice. And because they were writing about issues that were more immediate to them, they were more readily accepted than the earlier women writers who tried to imitate men. And this is probably why they were readily accepted by the mainstream, because their issues and their style were very different, and this is why they were able to create their own space.

18.No One Sleeps in Alexandria, by Egyptian author Ibrahim Abdel Meguid. AUC Press, 2007, translated by Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa. You can also read Abdel Meguid’s The Other Place and Birds of Amber in English, both published by AUC Press.

19.Love in Exile, by Egyptian author Bahaa Taher, AUC Press, 2001, translated by Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa. I would have chosen Taher’s Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery for the list, myself. Other works of his in translation include the International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning Sunset Oasis (trans. Humphrey Davies, published by Sceptre) and As Doha Said. I don’t believe, however, that his short stories have been translated.

20.The Cycles of the East, by the Syrian novelist and critic Nabil Suleiman.

I haven’t found anything of Suleiman’s has been published in English translation.

21The Epidemic, by Syrian author Hani al-Raheb, was excerpted in Banipal 9, translated by Bassam K Frangieh. I can find none of al-Rehab’s fiction outside this excerpt. However, I did see that his The Zionist Character in the English Novel was translated into English and published by Third World Books. It’s out of print.

23The Night of Ten Years, by Tunisian author Muhammad Salih al-Jabri. I find nothing by Muhammad Salih al-Jabri in English.

24Season of Migration to the North, by the celebrated, world-renowned Sudanese author Tayeb Salih. Available in many editions; here from NYRB classics, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies.

25Memory in the Flesh, by the Algerian writer Ahlam Mostaghanmi, was published by AUC press in 2003. The book was translated by Baria Ahmar and revised by Peter Clark; neither translation is particularly lauded. Mostaghanmi’s Nessyane.Com is coming out from Bloomsbury-Qatar this year.

26For Bread Alone, by much-banned Moroccan author Mohamed Choukri, was translated by Paul Bowles and is available from Telegram Books.

27Legislation of Al Murr by Syrian author Abdul-Karim Nassif. Nothing. Not a whiff of Abdul-Karim Nassif in English, nor Abdel-Karim Nassef, nor Abdelkarim Nasf, nor any other variation I could dream up.

28 House of Pleasure, by Syrian writer Walid Ikhlassi. I couldn’t find any mention of Dar el Mit3a, but University of Texas Press has published Iklhassi’s What Ever Happened to Antara . Also, Iklhassi’s play “The Path” is in the collection Modern Arabic Drama, edited by Salma Khadra Jayysusi and Roger Allen. It’s available from Indiana University Press. Ikhlass also has two short stories in Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthology, edited by Jayyusi. More about Ikhlassi here.

29Death in Beirut, by Lebanese author Tawfiq Yousef Awad, was translated Leslie McLoughlin and published by Three Continents Press.

30The Elephants is a novel by one of my favorite authors, the Egyptian Fathi Ghanem (1923?-1999). The Elephants is not available in English; however, you can find The Man Who Lost His Shadow, translated by Desmond Stewart and published by AUC Press.

31Najran Below Zero, by the Palestinian Yaha Yakhlaf.

I could not find Najran Taht al-Sifr in English, but I did see Buhayrah Wara’ al-Rih, translated as A Lake Beyond the Wind by May Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley, published by Interlink.

32Lovers, by Palestinian author Rashad Abu Shawar, has been called “the finest novel to describe the misery of Palestinians in the refugee camp setting.”

41The Heron, by the Egyptian author Ibrahim Aslan, translated by Elliot Colla and published by AUC Press.

Read the eloquent Baheyya’s homage to Aslan here. Aslan’s Nile Sparrows is also available in translation, but not, disappointingly, his more recent work.

42Gate of the Sun, by the Lebanese author Elias Khoury, translated by Humphrey Davies and published by Archipelago. You can also read Khoury’s Yalo, Little Mountain, White Masks, The Journey of Little Gandhi, The Kingdom of Strangers and The Gates of the City in English. And As Though She Were Sleeping is forthcoming this year, in translations by Humphrey Davies (Quercus) and Marilyn Booth (Archipelago).

43Latin Quarter, by the Lebanese author Suhail Idriss.

Banipal has an obituary for Idriss in 31, although I could find none of Idriss’ stories in the magazine. I did find one in Salma Khadra Jayysusi’s Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthology.

52The Story of Zahra, by the popular Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh. The book, which I fell in love with on first reading, was translated by translated by Peter Ford and is out in numerous editions. Here from Anchor.

53Wind from the South, by Abdelhamid Ben Haddouka, was the first Algerian novel published in Arabic.

I was not able to find any of Ben Haddouka’s work in English. It was translated into French as Vent du Sud (Société nationale d’édition et de diffusion, 1975)

In 2000, the al-Thaqafiah weekly editor-in-chief, Samir al-Yousofi, was imprisoned and prosecuted for republishing “Sana’a: an Open City” by famous Yemeni short story writer Mohammed Abdul Wali who died in the 1970s. He was accused of blasphemy and insulting Islam. The then Minister of Information Abdul Rahman al-Akwa stood by al-Yousofi who was harassed by the Islah party.

The case was later dropped as high ranking officials intervened to settle it.

Abdul Wali’sThey Die Strangers is, however, available in English. It was translated by Abubaker Bagader and Deborah Akers and published by the University of Texas Press.

59Granada, by the Egyptian author Radwa Ashour. Granada was translated by William Granara (sometimes Bill Granara) and published by Syracuse University Press. You can also find Ashour’s Specters and Siraaj, and she also worked with her husband Mourid Barghouti to translate a collection of his poems, Midnight and Other Poems.

60The Call of the Curlew or The Call of the Plover by Egypt’s Taha Hussein was translated by A.B. As-Safi and published by Palm Press.

61Seeds of Corruption, by the Egyptian author Sabri Moussa, translated by Mona Mikhail, published by Interlink in 2002.

62 Al Saghamat, by the Egyptian author Yusuf al-Sibai. I didn’t find any novels, but I did find a book about al-Sibai’s novels: The novels of an Egyptian romanticist Yysuf al-Sibai, by Gail Ramsay. Published by Edsbruk. And his The Cobbler and Other Stories (Cairo, Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers, 1973) was published in English.

67The Shadow and the Echo, by the Lebanese writer Yusuf Habashi al-Ashqar. Roger Allen translated an extract from Al-Zill wa-al-sada (The Shadow and The Echo), for Banipal 4 (Spring 1999).

Also, there is a story of al-Asqar’s in Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthology, edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, out from Columbia University Press.

Al Ahram Weekly, on the translationg of al-Ashqar:

Perhaps one of the most challenging tasks for the translation of fiction is the rendering of the tone and dialogue of the original. The two short stories by Yusuf Habashi al-Ashqar and Ibrahim Aslan are good examples of this. In al-Ashqar’s short story entitled “The Banquet” (translated by Adnan Haydar and Anthony Thwaite) lyrical prose and symbolic overtones convey the theme of the destructive Lebanese civil war and sectarian strife. Educated at St. Joseph University and at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, al-Ashqar’s prose is thick and multi-layered as in the following:

Jiryas put his hands on my shoulders . . . His seventy years glowed in his eyes like seventy candles lit in celebration of his sons’ return.

“Every time they return I light the seventy candles. Every time I am born again with them and I dance on the roof for the prodigal who is found.”

68Al-Daqqala in Arajenha, by the Tunisian author Al-Bashir Khareef. Nothing.

70Door to the Courtyard, by the internationally known Palestinian writer Sahar Khalifeh. Bab el-Saha,however, has not been translated into English. You can find it in German – Das Tor (Unionsverlag, 2004) and French – L’impasse de bab essaha (Flammarion, 1998).

Al-Rikabi’s acclaimed novel Sabi’a Ayaam al-Khalq (Seventh Day of Creation) was excerpted in Banipal 32, translated by Wen-chin Ouyang. I don’t believe the full novel has been translated, or at any rate published.

72 A Touch of Fear, by Egyptian Tharwat Abaza. Published by the General Egyptian Book Organization, 1992.

73The Ace, by Algerian Tahar Wattar.

You won’t find The Ace in English (I don’t think), but you can find Wattar’sThe Earthquake translated by Bill/William Granara and available from Saqi Books. You can find it in French as L’as (Temps Actuel,1983).

Abd al-Quddus wrote more than sixty novels and collections of short stories, many of which were made into films. His works of Arabic literature were characterized by psychological studies of political and social behavior. Among his works translated into English are I Am Free, The Bus Thief, and A Boy’s Best Friend.

Ismail Fahad Ismail is the founder of the Novel Art in Kuwait, and he is one of the biggest novelists in the Arab region. His first novel When the Sky was Blue was published in 1970. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in literature and critical studies from the Higher Institute of Theatre Arts in Kuwait, has worked in teaching and managed an art production company. He is a full time writer since 1985.

But nothing in English, that I can find.

85Wandering Wings, by Lebanese author Jawad Al-Sidawi.

86The Days of Ashes, from Moroccan writer Mohammad Ezzeddine Tazi. His story “Myth of North” in anthology Sardines and Oranges.

87Ras Beirut, by Syrian author Yasin Rifa’ieh.

I didn’t find any evidence of Ras Beirut in English, but I did find a story by Rifai’eh/Rifa’iyya in Modern Arabic Fiction : An Anthology, edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi, and in Modern Syrian Short Stories, edited by Michel Azrak and M. J. L. Young.

88Eye of the Sun, by the Libyan author Khalifa Hussein Mustapha.

89Longa and the Ghoul, by Algerian author Zahwar Wanissi.

90Clamor of the Lake, by the Egyptian Mohammed El-Bisatie. Translated by Hala Halim, published by AUC Press.

There are a number of El-Bisatie’s works in English: Over the Bridge, A Last Glass of Tea and Other Stories, Houses Behind the Trees, Hunger, Drumbeat. I recommend Houses Behind the Trees.

91The Sleepwalkers, by Egyptian Sa’ad Makkawi (1916-1985).

It’s set in Mameluke Egypt, and is Makkawi’s best-known work. But it’s not, in so far as I can tell, in English.

921952, by Egyptian Jamil Atiyah Ibrahim.

No evidence of 1952 in English. I did find his Down to the Sea, introduced and translated by Frances Liardet, published by Quartet in 1991. Also his The Child and the King (ProQuest LLC, 2008).

93Birds of September, by the Lebanese author Emily Nasrallah.

God bless writers who have their own websites. On Emilynasrallah.com, I found that “Although translated into several languages, [Birds of September] is still to appear in English.”

You can get Nasrallah’s Fight Against Time, which was translated by Issa J. Boullata and published by University of Texas Press.

Again, hoorah for authors‘ and agents’ websites. Farkouh is represented by the Lebanese Raya Agency.

It looks like they’re still trying to move the English-language rights to his books, but you can read three of Farkouh’s short stories in Banipal 30: “Creation, A Man I Don’t Know” and “A Very Long Short Story.”

97Birds of The Dawn, by the Lebanese author Lily Osseiran

98Jisr Banat Yacoub, by Palestinian author Hassan Hamid

99Al Wasmiya, by the Saudi Abdel-aziz Mishri. You won’t find Al Wasmiya in English (I don’t think), but you can find one of Mishri’s stories in the collection Oranges in the Sun: Short Stories from the Arabian Gulf, published by Lynne Rienner Publishers.

100A Man from Bashmour, by the Egyptian Salwa Bakr, was published by AUC Press in a translation by Nancy Roberts.

If you like Bakr, you might also read The Golden Chariot, and The Wiles of Men and Other Stories, both of which have been translated into English.

Ahdaf Souief lists this as one of the great Arabic love stories, along with Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy (#1). The three other books on her list are not here: Colette Khoury: Ayyam Ma’ah (1959), Enayat el-Zayyat: Al-Hubb w’al-Samt (1967), Layla al-Juhani: Jahiliyya (2006).

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Nice to see some Gulf novelists in there. I picked up a copy of al-Rish’s “al-‘Itiraf” a while back, had no idea it was held in such high esteem. Will have to dig it out soon I think. He’s been described as the best-known and most productive Emirati novelist. I believe al-‘Itiraf was his first novel and published in 1970.
84 Al-Khamasseya, by Kuwaiti Ismail Fahd Ismail. – I think this is actually referring to his seven-parter “Ihdathiyat fi Zaman al-‘Uzla” which is set in Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion (unless he’s also published a quintet, I’m sure someone will put me right).

Did they say it’s the top 105 IN ORDER? Not just the top 105? If so, it must have taken them ages to come up with the list. I can’t even decide on my top ten books in order to *myself,* and would never try it with a committee.

This is a timely post considering the “Arab vs. Latin American, Russian novels” one that got us all in a state. 😀